Why plastic surgery rocks

This column came about because of Bret Michaels. And believe me, I never thought I’d write that sentence. For some reason, my friends and I gather round every Sunday to watch “Rock of Love 2,” and yet all we do is talk about how bad it is the whole way through. What is most striking about the show is not the fact that Michaels never takes off his bandana. (Is he bald? Scientists are still hypothesizing.) It’s not that every girl on the show somehow manages to out-slut the next one and represent every negative stereotype about women. It’s not even the fact that a show like this exists, and you’re watching it instead of helping humanity, or exercising, or ... really, anything ranks in as more productive. No, what is most shocking about a show like ROL2 (real fans call it that), are the fake boobs.\nIn our society, plastic surgery has become increasingly common. If our noses are too big, our lips too thin or our skin too wrinkled, we have plastic surgery. But it’s still easy to look down upon it, despite the fact that more and more people are doing it. In American society, vanity has become so common that we endanger our lives to look good. \nWomen who get breast implants, like our favorite girls at the ROL2 mansion, can lose sensation in their breasts as a side effect from the surgery. Therefore, women give up their own sexual pleasure to fulfill someone else’s desires. They are, in some sense, shallow. And if you agreed with any of that, then you’ll have to admit it: You, just like me, have judged those who have gotten plastic surgery.\nBut as with everything, there’s another side to the story. In a society that judges based on appearance, why is it such a sin to alter it? Beauty has value in our society. People can get jobs because of it, not to mention lovers, raises, free beer, etc. We think that if people look good, it’s because they’re healthy and work for it. But if you get plastic surgery, we view it kind of like cheating. But is it fair to set such an unreasonable standard of beauty and then judge those for trying to achieve it? Beauty is not some abstract, vain idea. Beauty is real and in our society. It has power. \nAnd finally, instead of attacking our society for proliferating these images, we attack the people who choose to get the surgery. If you believe plastic surgery is wrong, then the system that helps put it into place must be wrong, and placing personal judgments on those people themselves is off the mark, even if those people are the girls who appear on “Rock of Love 2.” So while I myself won’t be getting plastic surgery, I refuse to judge the ROL2 women based on their cup sizes. I will instead judge them based on edited unrealistic images of them “falling in love” with Bret.